Cornell Profs Slam Use of Wikipedia
February 20, 2007 - 2:27amOne professor in the city and regional planning department tells her students that she will “slash” their essays if they use Wikipedia as the sole source of information. She is tired of reading research papers that are falsely cited and finding that the free Internet encyclopedia is to blame. The professor’s hostility towards Wikipedia is part of a growing sentiment among professors who are banding together against the citation of inaccurate information.
Middlebury College’s history department recently banned the use of Wikipedia as a source for research. Chairperson Don Wyatt said that the department finally came to the decision when they found that multiple students had cited wrong information from the website.
“Wikipedia is very seductive,” Wyatt told the Chronicle of Higher Education. “We are all sort of enamored of the convenience and speed of the Web. From the standpoint of access, it’s a marvelous thing. But from the standpoint of maintaining quality, it’s much less so.”
One of the primary concerns about Wikipedia is that it is openly edited — anyone can change or update entries. Though legions of so-called “Wikipedians” spend hours of volunteer time maintaining the site, even Jimmy Wales, the site’s co-founder, says that neither Wikipedia — nor any other encyclopedia — should be used as an academic source.
Prof. Aaron Sachs, history, said Wikipedia should be used with caution in research.
“I tell my students that Wikipedia is sometimes a decent option for a getting a basic overview,” he said. “But even then it takes a lot of practice to recognize when an entry might be more or less reliable.”
A December 2005 study by Nature Magazine found that Wikipedia had on average four errors per article compared to Encyclopedia Britannica’s three.
Britannica has fervently denied that Wikipedia could be anywhere near as accurate.
“It is not the case that errors creep in on an occasional basis or that a couple articles are poorly written,” Tom Panelas, Britannica’s director of corporate communications, told Nature about Wikipedia. “There are lots of articles in poor condition. They need a good editor."
Prof. Bill Arms, computer science, who focuses on digital libraries and electronic publishing, is more enthusiastic about Wikipedia.
“In my field the entries are usually well written, accurate and up to date. In my last lecture, I explicitly suggested that the students should read a Wikipedia article. It was at least as good as lecture notes that I might have written,” Arms said.
However, he still encourages his students to use a variety of sources and cross-check them against each other.
While many professors are in an uproar, most students at Cornell tend not to quote Wikipedia as fact.
“I will use Wikipedia if I need to look up an equation or if I want to get background information before starting my research, but I wouldn’t ever cite it in a paper,” said Michael Lazar ’10.
“I love Wikipedia because there’s an entry for everything. When there’s something I just don’t know I it’s good to be able to look it up. But it really isn’t specific enough for a research paper,” said Jeff Krock ’10.
Wyatt echoed Cornell students’ view of the website.
“I happen to personally like Wikipedia,” Wyatt said. “This is not a personal stance or a hostile one. Wikipedia is a wonderful innovation, but it has its limits.”
An uproar?
I have to respectfully take issue with Mr. Eisen's comment that "many professors are in an uproar" about Wikipedia (in general, apparently, considering the vague nature of the comment.)
As a public school teacher of English, I am paying particular attention to the flap over Middlebury College's ban and the growing aftermath. It is interesting to see how many in the blogosphere are inflating this to something it is not. None of the sources quoted are lambasting Wikipedia or decrying it as the downfall of education as we know it.
Middlebury's history chair, the professors at Cornell, and professors at Tufts (in a related article) all seem to be in agreement: I like Wikipedia, I think it's fine that students begin there, they need to go beyond it, they may not cite it.
That doesn't strike me as an "uproar".
Understandably, those of us who are advocates for digital learning and Web 2.0 in the classroom become a little nervous when censorship and filtering (read: blocking) rear their ugly head. But I believe there is an opportunity here to better TEACH students HOW to research properly. And I don't believe that stirring up non-existent flames will help in the cause.
And those of us at Wikipedia agree
It's an encyclopedia - a tertiary source. It's not a referenceable source in itself! It's fantastic as a quick backgrounder, but if it's important then you should follow the reference links. And if there aren't any, that tells you something too (and you may want to put an {{unreferenced}} tag at the top of the article).
Hear hear, David.
As one of the group of editors who helped push Cornell's article to Featured Article status, I'll also say right away that Wikipedia articles are only as reliable as the sources they draw upon, which is why the project has strict rules about article sources. Wikipedia is a great way to get a good general grasp of a topic, and if the article has been written correctly, serves as a sourced launching point to gathering information from other sources. As a tertiary source, however, it really isn't appropriate to quote it (or any encyclopedia) in academic work, when secondary and primary sources are available.
High school students too!
I have also found that teachers will often suggest that we "Wikipedia" a certain topic to get a basic idea of it, but that it's not really reliable for in-depth analysis.
For one thing, it lacks sufficient detail for some areas, like a geography paper on Tioman Island, and in other areas, the sheer volume of information is beyond my comprehension, like a biology paper I had to do on Pre Genetic Diagnosis (or something, I gave up bio this year :P).
Wikipedia should not be blamed for its lack of accuracy - they make no false claims about their level of accuracy and its common knowledge that anyone with the time and effort can edit it. If a student is careless enough to use Wikipedia as their sole information source, and then get it wrong, that's their problem.
My personal favourite on Wikipedia is the feature called "external links" as this bit tends to link to sites that are more reliable. In my opinion, this should be looked into a lot more, to make Wikipedia a kind of portal which gives users a broad overview, and then links them to other articles on academic websites that will prove to be more reliable.
Three cheers for Wikipedia!